The last piece used from my last feature that I hadn't yet blogged. Now, onto the new stuff...

And be there be there be there oh yeah, this Saturday, August 1st, 2pm, Dan O Connell, 225 Canning Street Carlton, to see what new stuff I've cooked up. The 2 sets at the Dan will feature all new material not yet heard in public, and not seen on here (except 2 pieces that have been heavily revised) ...and am I exhausted at all this preparation or what.

As with yesterday's entry (Left Unsaid) this has a very rhythmical structure and I don't know how well this goes on the page, but I wanted to blog everything used at my last gig, so here it is. Also one of the few bits I have about cycling where I'm not mixing sexual-metaphors (at least, not that I'm aware of... ah never mind). Enjoy!

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Told you so,But I’m not gonna say,I told you so,And a guy walks into a bar and says,And it’s just like I always say,We got a saying back where I come from,And... you don’t say,And it’s all he-said she-said anyway,And said the spider to the fly,Say What?And said God to Jesus,And Christ said unto them,Say it like you mean it,Talk is Cheap,And a word in anger,And a way of wording it,And say, this saying goes...And,And,And...

Saturday, July 18, 2009

I heart New York,I heart New York like pigeons in flight,Flashing bike lights,Never sleeping poetry slam Statton island man,Crossed by the ferry man,Damned,All canned into concrete canyons,On huge screens I stared at in Time Square,There,Where black clad pow-leece protect puddles of rain water,Sorta reminded me of the poor pigs I pigged out on plates of pastrami prior,Tire of piggy-backing this bag on my insanity overwhelming me spread thin my eyes on asphalt hungrily hunger for more-more want it raw galore encore sightseeing whore,Doors,Flew open me often dropping subway tokens, start spreading the news you’re my new muse I can use these views to amuse folks back home, that shit was smokin’ still choking on the spoken words I heard,To the beat,You can concrete me into this jungle with you caged in a zoo exhibit where I exhibit caginess all night,On display my power animal now craves to be fed....

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

No one who knows who I am knows where I am,No one who knows where I am, knows who I am.

I am,Walking down streets where I don’t speak,Big Apple lumping in my throat,A fake name otherwise not knowing what to say for itself,Don’t matter because nothing is the matter,Anymore.

And it’s about time,I'm returning it back to you,Unused and its originally-sold condition,Give me time if you like,But I’m finding my lost time less than a bother,

At three AM, this city does sleep,I assure you,I haven't carved my name into raw exposed skin,On the back of a Manhattan that dared me to,Instead while it slumbers I scribble its name on me,With a heart on my sleeve,Right between I and the N –why.

Talking what I’ve already walked,I've bridged the gap between you,And the needs on the other side,I've shared nights from stolen glances,With their rightful owners.I’ve been sold-on the Brooklyn bridge,And no longer spinning centrifugal for attention,Because it's a centre that doesn’t hold,Can’t hold me here nor there nor anywhere,Anymore.

As I collected this week to recollect,Life stuffed full til the stitching bursts,There’s a vague threat,Camera strap hanging over me like a noose,Snapping shots break-neck,Well that’s a warning I chose to neglect,Because, as it turns out,

I can hang,All on my own,

Just fine.

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I'm starting to finally crack into the notebooks I wrote while travelling. This bit corresponds to one of two photo albums from New York that I'm putting up online:

Monday, July 13, 2009

A nugget that's been sitting in my inbox since late September last year,Courtesy of my good friend RohanD'Souza,Gave me this in addition to a new predilection for Royal Stag whisky,Binge drinking while bitching about the worst cock-teasers we'd met in our lives,Reading me passages out of Tom Robbins' books,While I contemplated his Bob Marley fluoro bedspreads,What I got in exchange in addition to the above while lying in that Delhi hotel room,Back in September 08,Now its July 09,And I'm feeling really really stupid.

Because I didn't have to be the last one to know,But I am, as usual,Worse still was that Rohan has kept on my case,About looking this up,Every month since then.

Rohan my man for black label bottles in back alleys,Up stair cases in black bags,For a few of my lousy poems and a Buddy Wakefield recital, a bargain,AnisMojgani has been sitting here holding his tongue since-when,It was the time of my life, but, like~Makes me wonder, makes me scared,What the hell-fuck else have I got tucked away in these files that I'm yet to unearth?

Anyway, those are my issues,And this is your link,Smells like homework I know,Sorry to do this to you,I'm not the habit of just pasting up other people's shit,Usually I figure my blog should be my content,And that's what we're both here for,Plus I don't want to associate myself with any kind of name-dropping thing,But... me NOT sharing this link with anyone I can,Through whatever means I can,Would be like stealing something,And short of train tickets and the odd street-sign... I'm an honest enough man.

Besides, we gotta poetic preamble thing going on here,Now,You might roll your eyes when you see '9.48' but I guarantee by about 2.53,You are gonna be bummed you only got 7 odd minutes left,

Couple a'things:Of all the redux', this one's the most extensive, with little of the original remaining. I intended it to be a decidely dark poem, but it was a little misconstrued in its original form.I don't know -opens up lots of dilemmas, accepting that something once unleashed, belongs to its audience (and not try to prescribe how people interpret your stuff).

I'm remembering that creepy little shit Ian McBryde telling me not to laugh at one of his poems, and me sneering back that it's no longer his once read out, but now here I am kind of doing the same thing.The answer of course, is that I need to be a better (clearer) writer. I definately wrote it for peformance -to be heard more than read -especially in the redux version, with cackling in an increasingly manic way that just wouldn't read here.Page v Stage... a whole other topic, and anyway, enough thinking out-loud, though I welcome anyone's thoughts on the above.As always, thanks for reading.

Monday, July 6, 2009

It will be in that placewhere westerners come seeking ancient wisdomamongst inadequate sanitationhere for a piece of peace and tranquilityamongst an amazing harmony of...traffic horns.

If the World ever needs a reality checkit will be in India the incredibleboasting more billionaires,and impoverished peoples boththan any other nation on Earth.

If this one time a Sikh, a Muslim, Hinduand an atheistare sitting around togetherand so the atheist says…is this some sort of joke!the Sikh will sayno.

But the joke is ever been on youand you’ll be the only one getting itlaughing yourselfhystericallycynicallystiltedlyjadedlyfanaticallysilly.

What you looking at pal?

Hey don’t mind meI’m just in India.

If the world ever needs an enemait will be in India becauseno shitit’s in India that the shit is goin’ down manand upand aroundand on the wallsthe floors,the fires,the shit is in the streetsroadsfootprintsand it is definitelydefinitely, hitting the fan.

If there’s ever a fuse to be blownstreet poles each wired like whole phone exchangesthat in other countries might seem a little strangeit just won’t bebe-causeyou’ll be in India.

If you ever had a night angry enoughto spontaneously combust,you might have had to share sidewalkswith rows of naked childrenlain on the pavementsall along the side of streettrying to grab hold of your feet.

If you have ever felt moral outrageto be so

futile

then you will have survived those screaming contestsbetween these children and your own so-called consciencepicking the one you could console

It’s all rightit's all rightit's all rightall right?

Even though you knowit’s notand it’s never going to be.

If you’re ever feeling as filthyas mudon duston dirton mouldin piles of shitsweated into garbagecovered in mosquitoesthat someone is burning for some lack-of reasonyou will be in India, and

You

will be ridiculous.

Enough,to try to find net a connectionin the middle of major city intersectionyour foregone conclusions will not be watching trafficwhile walking straight into ita pedestrian leap of faithforegoing fail-safesbut its bumper to bumperand you can’t walk through this

this… traffic?

Unbridled dystopian anarchyslumped right on the doorof the planets most stifling bureaucracy.

If history can’t explain anythingnever again willand isn’t even trying anymoreif you remember thenwhy you long ago forgot the pointthe point is

that there is no point.

If everything is gonna be finebut whatever you do don’t look down nowif there was anything that everreally actuallywent wrongor couldor mightor should-have-but-didn’tor-should-not-have-but-did-anywayor won’t-but-watch-out-because-it-still-mightor will but you’ll never know until it's wayway too latemate,

You never knowit might bemight be…

that you are in India.

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The originally-blogged version of this was prefaced with a short poem from my friend Alex Scott:

"Everybody is gonna call everybody back,As soon as somebody knows something.".I decided to remove it this time because I think the opening line stands better on its own now, but I still wanted to note (here) that the tone of this was very much inspired by his piece of writing.

Meanwhile: Got another gig in the pipeworks, which is why I'm here typing instead of being somewhere doing stuff (plus it's cold out). August 1st at the Dan O Connell in Carlton:.

(oh and Jesus, after the near Fitzcarraldean effort it has just taken for me to paste this thing in the right place at the end of the blog, you motherfuckers better show up!)

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

My Dad probably couldn’t tell a poem,From a recipe for lentil soup,And he has exceedingly little use for either,That’s just two of the differences between us.

In fact for the longest time,All we had in common,Was a shared fondness for Star Trek,And a loathing, for one another.

Back then we interacted only when my school principal contacted him,Your son is in detention,Your son is out of control,Your son is about to get kicked out of this school… again.

Those phone calls to my Dad were my biggest fear,He got mad at my behavior,While I compared him to Darth Vader,I liked to liken my Dad to that black evil monster,‘cause how could he be my father,He confiscated my possessions in punishment,Wake up with things missing from my room and him already at work,Not there so I could show him how much I hate him.

When I was sixteen,I scratched off his face from my infant photograph with him,Had no right to hold who that baby became,Doesn’t know who I am,Spend time with me and doesn’t try.

Didn’t ever want to talk to him again, for days,For weeks that would have been for-ever, if I could help it.

Because I was living under his roof,His rooms, in His house,His Television,His unreasoning,His bullshit, his face,I just wanted to punch it in,But I couldn’t,

...because he was much bigger than me.

With the end of high school and adolescence,Our tension eased,We might watch together some Star Trek,And I began working on building up a HECS debt.

Without principals calling we had a kind of agreement,In principal,Don’t bother me and I won’t be bothered by you.

For years it was left at that,Until I saw another photograph,A recent one ~ when I was twenty three,With the same face that had I scratched away from me as a baby,My father’s face, but it was photograph of me.

And there he was,Different hair colour,Smaller stature, sure,But his features were in that photograph, Written all over my face.

As I was leaving Australia,I heard him call me his Frankenstein let loose in the world,We both recognize now that I am assembled from different components of him,More than facial features,I have found his strengths,Frailties were similar to mine,My father laughs like me, from the belly,And he laughs at what I laugh at,In a world that all too often needs laughing at.

At family dinners, Christmas’ and birthdays,My Dad and I delve into every topic,That polite company prefers not to discuss, (Please boys?)My poor sisters and mother trying to duck for cover,The women of the family will never understand,These globally warmed heated discussions,They can’t see the animation twinned in our faces,Pleading with us for no more,Of these exchanges we fire,Like proxies for Andrew Bolt and Michael Moore.

We both –know-, an opinion not worth itself,Lest you can beat someone else over the head with it,Not live at let live,Live to not suffer fools!Who are foolish in their foolishness,We both convinced we have the monopoly of truth,Then, call a truce,Agreeing to disagree,Both in glee having dueled with a worthy adversary,We’ve found our unique way to communicate.

Today,He still only knows as much about me as Mum tells him,We don’t talk much, can drive somewhere together,Two hours in the car yet exchange all of ten words.The sum, of differences,Between lazily watching slow films in fast forward,And a guy, who can’t service a bike of his own accord.

In the years between scratching out face his face,And finding it the same one on my own head,I re-watched Return of the Jedi with more analytical eyes,In that movie Darth Vader the begotten dark father dies,Unmasked, and redeemed,Reborn in the arms of his son.

Now,I understand those vast spaces between our words,Those years lost opposing worlds,The gaps of a generation generated between cats for cradles,And discs in the DVD player, watching Star Trek together.

He enjoys his books and his bikes,A quiet drink,Some time alone to think.

Simply stated.Something,I’m no longer going to leave un-articulated,So like David said to Captain Kirk at the end of Star Trek 2,There something I’ve wanted to say to you,

Dad, at last the time has come,To say,

“I’m proud… very proud, to be your son.”

___________________________________________

As performed in front of the old man himself at the recent Passionate Tongues gig, a much-tightened up re-package of the original 07/12/2008 post. I should have grabbed a photo of him/us to slap at the bottom here to help sell the repackage I guess... maybe next time I start molesting old poems again. Meanwhile, enjoy.